Held in the city of Ghent, Belgium, Ghent Festival is a celebration of music and theatre with stage events, mimicry and numerous other performing arts. The festival lasts for ten days. Beginning Saturday which comes before 2st July, the festival starts marking national holiday for Belgium and always ends on a Monday.

The festival sees attendees which range around 2 million people every year making it one of Europe’s most popular cultural extravaganzas. It is in fact the third biggest festival in Europe after Fallas (Valencia) and Oktoberfest (Munich).The last day of the festival is called de dag van de lege portemonnees (the day of the empty wallets) which testifies the fact that people who come from other places have spent all their money at the festival and thus that this day belongs to the locales of Ghent as the visitor rush almost ceases by the last day.

Origin:

The festival has its origin in 1843 but it began losing steam and was considered “middle class” but it got revived in the summer of 1969. Walter De Buck, the Ghent singer started this festival along with people from a café named Trefpunt Café .Initially it used to be a single stage program set up near Saint Jacob Church. By late eighties the festival started gathering fuel and became enormously popular. The program had an archaistic and rebellious atmosphere in the early days some of which still continues like public drunkenness although now it has attained a mass stature.

The Ghent Festival is known for pop music, folk-rock, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, R& B music. There are lots of events like theatre, comedy, exhibitions, sightseeing, boat trips etc. Also there are lots of fine dining and drinking (especially the well known Belgian beer) options.

Today the Ghent Festival is one of the most popular music festivals not only in Europe but throughout the world with millions of people coming to enjoy the celebration of music in the city of Ghent.